Sunday 16th October 2016 – OOOH LOOK!

It’s a train! And it’s not in Leuven station either, is it?

Yes, I’ve been out and about today, and on my travels too. Nothing like a nice afternoon out, a change of scenery, a change of ideas and all of that. And to somewhere that I haven’t been for ages and which I quite like too.

Doesn’t this all make a change?

All in all, it was a really good day up to a certain point. Especially as I’d had a really good night’s sleep.

I was in bed reasonably early last night (something like 22:30 if I remember correctly) and more-or-less straight asleep. And the next thing that I remember was that it was 06:45. That was totally painless – I’ll tell you that. I’d been on my travels as well but don’t ask me where I went and what I did because I remember nothing at all.

And by 08:15 I’d breakfasted and even been down the road to the boulanger for my Sunday baguette. That’s what I call “organised”. I spent the rest of the morning working on my blog and by the time that I’d finished, it was completely up-to-date.

That on its own deserved a reward. And it was a beautiful day too, with not a cloud in the sky.

And so I hit the streets.

This is one of the most beautiful buildings in Belgium (yes, I’m still in Belgium) and I bet that you won’t know as what it serves until I tell you. You’ll never guess.

It’s not a palace, a court of an art gallery or a museum, but it is in fact a railway station – one of the most beautiful in the world. Antwerp Central railway station it is, and it’s a monument to everything that is great and good about Belgian architecture.

It took 10 years to build – from 1895 to 1905 – and replaced the original railway station that had been the terminus of one of the very first railway lines in the country.

And although you might not think so, it was hit by a German V2 rocket during World War II. While no significant damage appeared to have been caused, the shock waves from the blast had undermined the stability of the roof, which then in the early 1980s started to sag alarmingly.

The roof of the train shed is one of the most magnificent parts of a most magnificent building. It covers 12,000m² and was designed by Clément van Bogaert. To have demolished it (or even to have demolished the station, which at one time was being seriously discussed) would have been nothing short of an act of deliberate vandalism.

But wiser heads prevailed.The station was closed for a short while in the late 1980s and the glass was replaced by polycarbonate, which is about half of the weight of the glass and which seems to have resolved the problem.

We have seen on our travels around the Northern hemisphere some totally disgraceful acts of vandalism as classic railway stations have been butchered or even demolished to make way for the 21st Century.

Here in the Antwerp Central Railway station, they have been solving the problem of expansion in a way that is so simple and so straightforward that it’s a wonder that no other railway network or modern architect has tried it.

What they did was simply to expand downwards. The railway station is built on four levels – the newest and most modern level, to accommodate the TGVs, is on the fourth level down. It’s all so simple, isn’t it?

I went outside into the sunshine, because it really was a nice day. Here, I’m in the Meir

But we can’t go off down the Meir without looking backwards at this gorgeous building. yes, you’ve guessed – it’s the Antwerp Central Station again, designed by Louis Delacenserie, the city architect of Bruges and who was responsible for the restoration of the magnificent buildings in that city. And you can see why I’ve placed the station so highly on my list of magnificent buildings.

And if you look carefully at the plaque just above the entrance arch, you’ll see (although you can’t see it in this photo) the word Middenstatie – Middle Station in Flemish. That’s the original name of the Railway Station.

And then I had a sudden shock. I’d noticed the time. I’d been so engrossed in what I was doing with the Central Station that I had completely overlooked the real purpose of my visit to the city.

I needed the tram 5, and I had worked out the route that it took, and so I headed off to a nearby tram stop to wait.

And wait

And wait.

Suddenly, I had a flash of inspiration. I walked around the corner and there was a flight of stairs leading down. I hadn’t realised this, and how I ground my teeth when I had worked it out, that trams 2,3,5 and 6 are called the “Metro” and they run through the city underground – not on the surface where I had been waiting.

And so about 20 minutes later than I had hoped to be, I finally discovered the underground metro system and then had to wait 10 minutes for my tram.

Damn and blast!

And here I am in Deurne, on the outskirts of the city. And this is the Bosuilstadion, the home of Royal Antwerp Football Club.

This was my destination for this afternoon and I’ve finally made it, 20 minutes after kick-off. And my odyssey isn’t over yet, because being so late, all of the ticket booths are closed.

A steward directed me to an office where I had to argue my way into the ground (I’m impressed with how much my Flemish is improving) and I ended up having to pay €25:00 for en expensive seat. They wouldn’t let me into the cheap seats.

And by the time that I finally entered the ground, I’d missed almost all of the first half. and I’d missed two goals too. 1-1 it was when I finally took my seat.

All of that I’d missed, and for €25:00 too. I fancied a cup of coffee after all of my exertions, but the unexpected €10:00 over what admission to the cheap seats would have cost me had cleaned me out.

I was not having a very good day today.

I didn’t mention that the reason for my coming here was that OH Leuven was playing away against Royal Antwerp. That’s them in the black strip – Royal Antwerp in the white and red.

I’ve been without my football fix for two months now and the easy accessibility of trains, the proximity of Antwerp to Leuven and the glorious weather was more than enough to entice me out of my cocoon to watch the action, such a sit might have been.

The Royal Antwerp fans are very happy – letting off a red smoke bomb and waving a huge club flag about.

And so they ought to be, too. They’ve just scored a second goal, a goal that turns out to be the decisive, winning goal.

And at the final whistle, It occurs to me that I have never ever seen OH Leuven do anything else except lose. I must be the Kiss of Death to OH Leuven.

In fact, from what I saw of the game, it was pretty miserable. There wasn’t much in the way of excitement and the goalkeepers didn’t really have to do all that much. The Royal Antwerp keeper was the busier of the two but he wasn’t really under all that much pressure.

Royal Antwerp had a player, the squad n°55, who was an exciting player when he had the ball. He looked the best player on the pitch at certain moments, but he only seemed to work in fits and starts and it didn’t seem to me as if he was all that keen to run and chase around when he didn’t have the ball – not that I would know all that much about it.

I caught the tram back into the city and decanted myself out into the Meir. The Meir is the main shopping street of the city and where everything in the city goes on, and it’s also where there are some really magnificent buildings here.

I was lucky in that it hadn’t gone quite dark by this time, so the camera on my mobile phone could cope with the situation, such as taking a photo of the big Inno Department Store here, with the much-more banal Delhaize supermarket in the foreground.

My idea of a late evening wandering around the city taking some photographs came to a rather dramatic halt as the light disappeared.

Had I had the Nikon D5000 with me, it wouldn’t have been too much of an issue but cameras like that aren’t allowed in football grounds in Belgium so I hadn’t brought it with me – relying instead on the camera on the telephone, which doesn’t work very well in situations like this.

Instead, I went to sort out some cash and then went for something to eat. It’s Sunday, pizza night, I had bought some vegan cheese the other day and I’d seen a very democratic pizza place on my travels. It was run by real Italians too, and I ended up speaking Italian to them – and it’s been a long time … "two years ago last summer when you were in the Alto Adige in fact" – ed … since I’ve done that.

Brought back a few memories, that did. I must go off to Italy again.

Down in the bowels of the station I waited for my train back to Leuven. I’d come on the line via Brussels Airport and Mechelen, so I decided to go back on the line via Lier and Aarschot.

Not that it would make any difference because it was pitch black outside at this time of night and I couldn’t see a thing.

The train was packed when we set off, and as the journey progressed, more and more people crowded in. 99% of the people on board were students, dragging their suitcases behind them. Leuven is world-famous for its University, which is huge, and I imagine that all of these students have been home for the weekend and are now heading back to their kots.

It can’t have been unexpected because the train had been extended from the normal size to accommodate the crowds. So much so that there was an announcement “for those of you alighting from the train at Heverlee, DO NOT travel in the first four carriages. Presumably they don’t fit alongside the platform there.

The train pulled into the Station and the train disgorged about 99% of its passengers. And like a huge tidal wave, they all swarmed up the main drag into town, dragging their suitcases behind them.

People were dropping off the end of the wave the further towards the town centre we advanced, but there was still quite a crowd as we passed the beautiful Leuven Town Hall, all lit up in the night.

And when I finally reached my hostel and installed myself in my little room, I could still hear the rolling suitcases rattling by.

So here I am now, back at home, tired out and spent up. It’s been an exhausting day and I’m spent up – and not for very much good purpose either as I’d missed almost half of my football match.

But never mind – I’ve had a nice afternoon out, even if the photos don’t do the journey any justice. It’s a shame that I couldn’t take the Nikon and had to rely on the camera on the telephone, but I’ve done the best that I can.

I hope that you all enjoy it.

Saturday 15th October 2016 – I HAD ANOTHER …

…bad night last night. It took ages and ages for me to go off to sleep. In fact, round about 00:30 I gave up the effort and there I was, working on the laptop. That’s how much I was awake.

And I was there for ages working away, trying to drop off to sleep.

But sleep I must have done because I was off on my travels again. I can’t remember too much about it but I was somewhere up in the far North of Canada with some dog teams and a couple of groups of people.

The alarm went off at 07:00 and again at 07:15, and by 07:30 I was in the kitchen having breakfast. And following that, I went and had a shower. Alison was coming into town and we had arranged to go off for a coffee.

So once I’d cleaned myself up, changed my clothes and had a shave, I came back in here with another mug of coffee and carried on with some work that I had been doing during the night. And when Alison came round here, she awoke me and we hit the town.

First stop was the Wibra – I wanted some more of the plastic storage boxes that I had bought before leaving. But Wibra has moved into smaller premises while their main shop is being serviced. The new place isn’t big enough for all of the stock to be displayed and the boxes that I wanted were not on display.

We went then to Zeeman, which is a similar establishment and although they didn’t have exactly the type that I wanted. But there were some that were suitable and so I bought a packet of three.

Alison wanted to go to the new Charity Shop near the railway station to see if there was a television table. Nothing was suitable and there weren’t any CDs that interested me either. We went back into town, I bought a baguette for lunch and some boulghour because I forgot that the other day at the shops, and then we had a pleasant couple of hours in the cafe down the road from here, having a chat and drinking coffee.

After Alison had gone home I came back here for lunch and then to carry on with what I’d been trying to do a little earlier. After having had a good chat with Liz and another good friend of mine, I went back to work on the laptop and awoke an hour or so later.

Trying to decide what to have for tea, I worked out that pasta and ratatouille would be good enough. That called for garlic bread and so having bought some garlic and some vegan margarine, I nipped to the shop on the corner and bought some half-baked half-baguettes, as well as something to drink (because I’d forgotten that earlier) and and some soya milk for my breakfast.

Tea really was gorgeous too, although I maybe put a bit too much chili in with it. The soya caramel dessert that I had for pudding was even better. All in all I ate well tonight.

So now I’m going to have yet another early night. There’s an opportunity for me to go out on my travels tomorrow so I want to be at my best.

Friday 14th October 2016 – IT’S NICE …

… to be back!

I was in bed by about 21:30 last night, totally exhausted, and that was that. But not for long, unfortunately because the room where I am is right on the front of the house and there must have been a party somewhere in the vicinity because at about 01:15 a steady stream of noisy people went past here. That kept up until about 02:30 and so much so that I ended up doing some work on the laptop.

Once it quietened down I was soon back to sleep and that was that until the alarm went off at 07:00. I had been on my travels too during the night, doing something with a group of young people that involved being on a tower or a lighthouse and having to take a pile of plates and dishes -off-white with a pink border – down to be washed. While I was on the edge of a pond of muddy water I was stung on the wrist by a wasp and my instinctive response caused me to send a plate flying through the air into the mud where it broke. In fact, of the three plates that I was carrying, two of them were broken. And then, having done he rest of the washing-up I had to invent a system to hoist up the plates and dishes to the top of the tower.

Breakfast was the usual toast, muesli, orange juice and coffee (in fact, two mugs of coffee) and then back down to my little room. I pushed on with a pile of outstanding work and had quite a good day for a change. But at midday I had things to do.

First stop was to go down the road and pay the bill for staying here. I’m rather disappointed that he didn’t give me such a good deal as I had last time that I stayed here, but it’s still one of the best value-for-money places around so I oughtn’t complain too much.

Next stop was down to Caliburn, and then we went off to the Carrefour to do some shopping. Having done that, we all came back here and I unloaded some stuff. Clean clothes, the dirty stuff to go to the launderette and the food supplies. I took Caliburn back to his little hidey-hole and then came back here to make my butty for lunch.

This afternoon I carried on with what I was doing, although I did have a couple of distractions along the way. And as I was getting ready for my tea, Liz came on-line and we started to chat and have a photo-exchange session. By the time we had finished it was 20:45 and I didn’t feel much like cooking at that time of night. Instead, I had some biscuits and went to bed.

Thursday 13th October 2016 – WELL, YOU MIGHT HAVE GUESSED.

Blood count is down. And protein loss is up. The result of all of that is that I have to go back in just two weeks.

This is a bitter blow to me of course. I need to move on and do things, and I was hoping for six months – or even three months would have done me. But not two weeks.

But I’m not surprised, because I had a horrible night.

I wasn’t in bed all that early, and even so I just couldn’t drop off at all. I gave up trying to sleep at 05:45 and started to read a book – and that had the desired effect, albeit 6 hours too late. It really was a struggle to crawl out of bed at 07:15.

And despite the small amount of sleep, I’m managed to go a-wandering. I was in a car driving down a lane and ended up crossing two railway lines, about 40 yards apart. I’d always believed that they were simply each track of a double-track line built by someone with a sense of humour, but the book that I bought on Sunday in Montreal convinced me that these were just another set of “parallel lines” laid by the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian Northern Railway during the Canadian Great Railway Wars.

It’s funny how, even when I was asleep, I was able to think along logical lines like this, because it’s perfectly true. If you think that the Railway Wars between companies in the UK was savage, vicious and extremely wasteful, you haven’t seen anything until you read about what took place between the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian Nothern and the Grand Trunk Railroad. The useless infighting and unnecessary duplication of routes cost Canada millions of dollars and bankrupted a couple of the companies for no good purpose.

And so at 07:15 I crawled out of bed, at 07:30 I crawled out of the shower (so much for thinking that it would do me some good) and by 07:45 I was crammed like a sardine along with about 500 other people into an articulated bus, having grabbed a coffee on the way. I was decanted out at St Rafael so that I could go down to Caliburn to drop off the stuff that I had bought yesterday.

Having left all of my vegan cheese behind (that’s bad planning if they had decided to keep me in) I then boarded the wrong bus that led off in a completely different direction. I ended up having rather a long walk.

At the hospital, I had my blood test and a chat with the doctor. 2 hours later, the doctor came to see me. “It’s about yuor blood test …” she began. That sounded ominous, and no mistake. But she carried on to say that the blood testing machine had broken down and I would have to hang around for the results. Clogged up with root beer and maple syrup, I reckon.

Kaatje the Social Services girl came for a chat and I had to fill in a form. And having spent most of the morning reading Lord of the Rings I promptly wrote out “13th Orcober”. Yes, it’s getting to me, isn’t it, all of this?

Anyway, I managed just about to keep awake during the afternoon and about 16:30 they came back with the bad news.

With that ringing around in my ears, I went downstairs for a coffee and to make a phone call. And so here I am – back in the hostel where I stayed during the summer. There was a room available – not at the same good price that I was offered last time unfortunately – and so I took it. It’s cheaper that going back home and coming straight back and far less stressful. Stress – or the elimination of it – is quite important.

I set off for the hostel but within 20 minutes I was back in the Day Centre. Bane of Britain has, once again, gone off with his catheter still plugged in. You couldn’t make this up, could you?

And it’s good to be back on familiar territory with no pain at all. And I can have my old room back on Monday too. In the meantime, this one will do. I settled down for a while and then a bit later nipped down the road for a falafel butty for tea. I’ll rescue all of my supplies from Caliburn tomorrow.

Having organised that, I’m off to bed. Nice and early. Remember that I had a bad night last night.

Wednesday 12th October 2016 – AT 03:45 …

… I was still awake, tossing and turning around, but I don’t remember too much about anything after that.

However, I do remember the alarm clock going off at 07:00 and again at 07:15. and when they started using a percussion drill at 08:30, I remembered waking up then – just for a brief moment. It was 10:15 when I finally rose from my stinking pit.

I’d been on my travels too – rambled for miles and miles, but I don’t remember too much about it. All that I can remember was that I was in the trenches in the front line in World War I. I went to put my suitcase in the store, which caused my colonel to burst out laughing and he told me to take my rifle out of it – I’ll need it. He was right too because later on, there was a huge attack by the enemy – dressed in early 19th-Century uniforms. They came in several parallel point formations, really powerful, deep and strong. We were told initially to retreat but then to regroup and fight off the enemy. The point that was attacking where I was stationed was led by a soldier in his 20s with big round spectacles. We fired into the group but it had little effect and the leader, who had bayoneted several of my colleagues, ended up bayoneting me too.I wasn’t seriously wounded at all, and the attack line swept over me. Then it went calm and I was wondering whether to surrender or to try to creep back to wherever my lines might be, once it had gone dark.

First thing I did was to go to the supermarket downstairs and buy some stuff for breakfast. But surprisingly, I didn’t feel all that hungry so I didn’t eat it. And back here I carried on with some work that I needed to do. I even managed to miss out on lunch.

Round about 14:00 I started to sort out my belongings and packed everything into my suitcase that I won’t be needing tomorrow in the hospital. Once this was organised I set off for a long walk. All the way out to Caliburn in fact.

As I was passing by the Hema, I popped in. I’d seen a really decent wok in there, much better and heavier than the old one that I had been using back at home. I’d decided while I was in Canada that I would treat myself to that, but I also picked up a new small frying pan of the same model, and as well as that a new saucepan – a nice small heavy-duty one.

The Bank was the next port of call and I checked my bank accounts. Everything seemed to be in order there, especially as two payments had been made in without anything being withdrawn. That’s always nice to see.

And I also encountered something about which I had completely forgotten, and it didn’t half bring back many memories of when I was Roxanne’s stepfather for those three years.

That’s right, Rhys. Forget all about your school buses. In Belgium they have the school crocodile. Three or four parents and groups of the kids of the school, each group with its own route and dropping off the kids at their house or apartment. How environmentally-friendly is this?

Caliburn was a little sluggish to start – no surprise after being laid upf or almost seven weeks. And it was good to be behind the wheel with a proper steering wheel, a clutch and a real manual gearbox. We all enjoyed ourselves – just like old times. There was a parking place just opposite the hotel, which is a real surprise as you know. And so I picked up my suitcase, heaved it into the back of Caliburn and then drove him back to his parking. Strawberry Moose quickly installed himself in his habitual place and then I set off back to my room.

On the way back, I noticed a shoe sale in a really good-quality sports shop. My shoes are falling to bits and the boots that I have back home aren’t much better. And so I nipped in. And nipped out again with a really good pair of all-weather mud and snow leather walking boots at just €60:00 and a pair of high-quality trainers reduced to a final reduction price of €20:00. And these are the most comfortable shoes that I have worn for years.

There’s a glorious art-deco building in the pedestrian street. It’s a library and community centre with a café-restaurant in the basement. I felt that after my exertions today I deserved a coffee.

But you just have to love Flanders and the Flemish language. I don’t know about you, but I’m always up for a bit of a taart, especially if there’s a slagroom available. And at €4:00 a go – well, it makes me wish that I was a few years younger.

After the coffee, I headed back to the hotel and went for a shower. Now, where are my clean clothes? Where’s my razor?

Ohh I know – I don’t need them in hospital. They are … errr … in my suitcase that I had just taken right across town to Caliburn.

I just about made it to Zeeman in time before closing. Now I have some razors and undies and the like and I could have my shower and shave. And having showered and shaved I headed off into town to meet Alison, because we had agreed to meet up for a chat and a meal.

There’s a new vegan restaurant opened in the city and so we headed off there. The food was rather expensive (or, rather, there wasn’t a lot of it for your money) but it was delicious.

And that wasn’t all either because there’s a shop there. And that sold vegan cheese at the cheapest price that I have seen in Belgium, and some spray-on vegan cream. That is now in a paper bag by my bed ready to be taken up to the hospital (the cheese that is, not the cream) in case I am detained.

That’s right – I’m back at the hospital tomorrow.

We went to a couple of cafés for some stuff to drink and to continue our chat, and then Alison dropped me off back here. Now, I’m organising myself ready for tomorrow and my appointment with destiny. How did I do after six weeks without medical treatment?

Did I survive?

I suppose that I don’t really want to know.

Tuesday 11th October 2016 – THAT WAS ONE …

… of the best nights sleeps that I have ever had. I was in bed by 22:00 and I slept right through until 06:54 with not a care in the world. I didn’t feel a thing.

Well, sort of, because I’d been on my travels during the night. And they were mega-travels too. I’d started off by telling people that I was dying (which I suppose I am, really). I’d been out down some kind of muddy track where I met someone from the Auvergne (whatever is she doing here in this kind of situation?) and she was watching me pick up empty tins, cans and bottles. I told her that I needed to have the place tidiedup before I went.
From here I went on into Wistaston, some house at the top of the “Joey the Swan” and reversing her car into a parking place outside a big house was Hilda, a woman with whom I’d worked in the 1970s (and who had subsequently died of cancer). She was coming back to work here in quite a senior situation, a good few years after she had left. I did ask if they remembered her but she gave a knowing wink. We found a file of papers belonging to one of our old colleagues. Her given birth-date was a year later than mine and she had apparently been under investigation for hiding away some money in a bank account and told no-one about it. Apparently, the papers in this file disclosed that she had originally been a male, had a sex change to a woman and then married. We asked her about it and she replied that it simply wasn’t true and that some papers must have been muddled.
My next stop was to watch an ice-hockey game. Some boys from the area were taking on another group of players, but this second group was full of high-skilled professionals and the result was a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless the better players weren’t really exerting themselves and the lesser team was playing heroically, and the score was just 4-0. In the second half, the better players had an extraordinary breakaway and one of the players scored a stunning individual goal, and this led to the sending-off of the other team’s goal-minder for allegedly kicking out at the opposing attacker. It was clear to us that he was well-beaten and making a desperate last-ditch attempt to stop the goal and in any case it was a friendly match between two teams of vastly differing expectations, but the referee remained unmoved and this totally spoilt the expectations of the crowd.

So now that I was wide-awake, I had a thirst that you could photograph and I’d rejected breakfast (and you would have done too at €7:50 a throw). I waited until about 08:30 and then went outside, because there’s a supermarket right underneath the hotel. I bought a large bottle of pop and some grapes, seeing as how they were on special offer, but breakfast was actually a carton of orange juice, two bread rolls and a pot of jam. nothing wrong with that.

After breakfast, I did some work on the laptop for a while, and then round about 10:00 I crashed right out again. I was awakened by room service but told them to clear off and I was back to sleep within minutes. I went on some really extraordinary travels during my sleep but when I awoke (at about 15:00) it all went completely out of my mind, which was a real disappointment.

I managed to stay awake for a few hours afterwards. I did a little more work on the laptop and then round about 19:00 I went in search of a pizza – I really fancied one of those. And after demolishing that, I crashed out yet again for three hours or so.

Now, it’s 01:00 and I’m wide awake. I wonder what might happen next.

Monday 10th October 2016 – SO HERE I AM …

… or, rather, here’s my aeroplane. On the hard-standing at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Miles from the terminal of course because I imagine that Air Transat can’t afford the terminal fees.

Not that I’m too bothered of course. I have to pay my own air fare and anything that whittles the price down is fine by me. Remember that my return flight to Canada had cost me less that 40% of the fare of a blue-chip flagship carrier and you can’t say fairer than that.

Our plane was an Airbus 330, registration number C-GKTS. And although she may not look it, she is over 20 years old. Built in 1995 for Dragonair, an airline in Hong Kong, she was bought by Air Transat in 1999. Her build number is 111

I’d had a bad night on the aeroplane. Despite being reasonably comfortable, I couldn’t drop off to sleep and so ended up reading my book for a major part of the flight. The in-flight entertainment was total rubbish. It was dreadful on the way out, and there was exactly the same selection on the way back.

The food too was rubbish, but then I’d expected that. I had my bag of hot cross buns to keep me going.

There were only two immigration officers on duty at the Terminal when we arrived but luckily I was one of the first off the bus, so I didn’t have to wait too long. Mind you, it was a different story for the baggage. It took ages to arrive and mine was one of the last onto the conveyor.

From Terminal 3 I had to go off on my merry, mazy way to the interairport tram that would take me to Terminal 2 and my TGV to Brussels. And here I had some good luck. My flight had been bang on time, which was totally unexpected. So unexpected that when I was making my travel arrangements 6 weeks ago I had booked myself on the 16:07 train to Brussels in order to give myself room to manoeuvre in case we were delayed.

But there was an earlier train to Brussels, leaving at 13:07, and it was now about 12:20. Down at the SNCF offices I managed to blag my way onto this one (I had to pay a supplement of €13:00 but who cares?). That was an unexpected stroke of good fortune that doesn’t happen to me very often.

The train was bang on time, which is what you might expect in France, and I found myself sharing a table with a guy from Lille and his 4 year old daughter. We all had a good chat as far as Lille, and then I was on my own all the way to Bruxelles-Midi.

There was even more good news at Bruxelles-Midi. There was an inter-city train leaving for Welkenraedt in less than 10 minutes. They stop at the main Brussels stations and then express to Leuven, and that suits me fine.

There was plenty of room on the train so I could spread myself out, and I was quite comfortable on my trip to Leuven.

At the station, I took the lift up to the footbridge and that is on the same level as the entrance to my hotel. That’s much easier than having to struggle up several flights of stairs with my luggage.

The IBIS Budget Hotel is quite new. The rooms are tiny but it’s clean and friendly and just €59:00 a night, which isn’t too bad for a city centre hotel. It’s right next door to the station and the bus station, there’s a fritkot across the road and a supermarket down in the basement underneath. What more could any man desire?

First thing that I did when I arrived was to have a nice hot shower. As for the second thing that I did – well, I don’t remember. I crashed out completely. Totally out of it.

I was awake enough in the evening to go across the road to the fritkot. He did me a nice veggie-burger and chips and that filled a hole. The first hot food that I had had for several days by the way.

That was that, really. I’d had a hectic few days with little sleep and I wasn’t feeling too well either. The bed looked quite comfortable and so that was that. I was well away.

Sunday 9th October 2016 – AND SO THIS IS IT!

My last day in Canada on this trip. And for all I know, my last day ever in Canada. The way my health is going, I shall be hard-pushed to make it back.

But just for a change just recently, I had a good night’s sleep! In bed reasonably early, and out like a light. One trip down the corridor but apart from that it was totally painless until the alarm went off at 06:00. Didn’t feel a thing! My efforts of the last few days have worn me out as you know, and so a good sleep was an essential.

I was rather late for breakfast though and there was quite a crowd. But coffee, orange juice and bagels soon had me up and about.

It was a nicer day today too – some blue sky was out there for a change. With it being my last day, and with my flight not leaving until 22:00 I decided to take advantage of the weather to out and about, to say goodbye to the St Lawrence River. Accordingly, I had a little doze for a while, stuck my suitcase in the “left luggage” and then hit the road at 11:00, just in time to leap on board the bus 202 that was going past.

At the Ducollege Metro Station, I made a decision. I’ve been going one at a time to the different Metro Stations at the end of each line to see what was going on, but I’ve never actually been to the end of the line down from past DuCollege.

That Metro Station is the Cote-Vertu and so I headed off there. And this is a photo of the interior of the station, just to prove that I made it here. And you can even see a train down there at the bottom.

Here’s a photo of the exterior too. It’s situated on the corner of the Boulevard de la Cote Vertu and the Boulevard Decarie. The building is the one over there at mid-height on the left margin of the image.

And really, I should have come here ages and ages ago. It semms to be occupied by the Indian community and there’s a couple of very democratic Indian restaurants there, as well as a pizzeria and a falafel place too. I can quite easily find a place to eat here.

There are lots of other shops too, including a wholesale fruit and veg place that sold me a pound of delicious grapes at just $0:99.

Yes, I missed out here at the Cote Vertu.

Down one of the streets off the Boulevard Decarie I noticed a church, and so I went off down there to look at it.

It’s actually the Church of St Laurent, which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise seeing as we are actually in the Borough of St Laurent. The church was built in the 1830s, although the facade was not added unti 50 years later.

It’s not the first church on the site. There was one dating from the 1730s and which was significant in being the first church on the island to be built outside the traditional city limits.

The buildings next door to it were even more impressive than the church. This is the Vanier College and is significant in that it’s one of the very few English-language colleges in Quebec, having opened its doors in 1970.

As for the name, that relates to Georges-Phinéas Vanier, who was one of the very few Canadian-born Governor-Generals, and served from 1959 until 1967, much to the chagrin of the Quebecois extremists.

Prior to the college being here, this was the site of the Couvent Notre-Dame-des-Anges – the Convent of Our Lady of the Angels, run by the Soeurs de Sainte-Croix – the Sisters of the Holy Cross – from whom the land was bought.

There was also a women’s college, the Collège Basile-Moreau, on the site. He was, by the way, the founder of the Order of the Holy Cross.

On the way back to the Boulevard Decarie, I stumbled upon a Charity Shop that was actually open. And here I had an enormous stroke of luck.

I’ve written loads of stuff about abandoned railways and the like, mostly from analysis because there seems to be nothing at all in the way of historical research into Canadian railways. It’s not like the UK, where every inch of old railway is faithfully reported and its history thoroughly researched.

But here sitting on the shelves of the Charity Shop was a book entitled Canadian National Railways – Towards the Invitable Volume 2 1896-1922. It’s long out of print but it covers almost all of the lines in which I have an interest, including the ephemeral railway line to Centreville about which I’ve been barking completely up the wrong tree.

And $3:50? You must be joking!

My perambulations brought me all of a sudden to the DuCollege Metro Station. I realised that despite all of the trips that I have made from here, I’ve never actually taken a photo of the exterior of the building.

This is the time to put this right, even though it’s the other entrance that I habitually use. And while I was taking this photo from the park across the road, I was being smiled at by a couple of these religious people with their portable news stand handing out the literature.

I’d never actually looked down the end of the side-street in daylight either, and I’d been wondering why the street was called “DuCollege”. And I dealt with both of those issues while I was here.

There was this beautiful stone building right down the end of the street so I strolled off down there to inspect it. It’s the CEGEP ST Laurent. The Collège d’Enseignement Général et Professionnel is, I suppose, one level below the University system in the same sense that the old Polytechnics were in the UK – that kind of thing

Although some of the education services here date back almost 175 years, the college came into being in 1967 when the CEGEP system was founded. It goes without saying that it is French-speaking.

As for the church next to the CEGEP St Laurent, well, shame as it is to say it, there I was busy taking a photograph of it – after all, it really is beautiful – and then off I wandered back down the street towards the DuCollege Metro Station having forgotten to make a note of its name.

Anyway, it’s actually situated in the Avenue Sainte Croix, although I do realise that this piece of information isn’t going to help anyone very much.

Back at the Metro station, I hopped on board a train and headed into town. Just as far as the Victoria-OACI station, and then walked up the hill towards the Place d’Armes.

As I walked into the Place d’Armes through the crowds, this interesting vehicle pulled up across the square so that the passengers on board could look at the Cathedral and the statue of Paul Cholmedy, the Sieur de Maisonneuve.

It seems to be another one of these amphibious vehicles of the same type that we saw years ago in Halifax and probably does the same job. I can imagine that there’s some kind of factory somewhere in Canada churning out these machines for the tourism industry.

There’s a “Subway” further on down the street and that’s where I was heading. I’ve been wandering around for quite some time and it’s way past lunchtime. My stomach thinks that my throat has been cut.

Down at the docks, we’re in luck. Last day of our journey and we are able to conjure up a “Ship of the Day”.

She’s the Venture, a self-discharging bulk carrier of 30,000 tonnes and built in 2002. She arrived here after some considerable perambulation in the Mediterranean.

The flag that she is flying, and which I didn’t recognise at first, is the flag of the Marshall Islands, a group of islands (one of which is the legendary “Bikini Atoll” of nuclear-testing fame) in the Pacific and said by the United States Atomic Energy Commission to be “by far the most contaminated place in the world”.

Another claim to fame of the islands is that it probably has more ships than it has inhabitants – a fact probably not unconnected with the islands’ rate of corporation tax of just 3%.

By now the clouds were starting to close in from the south, but the rain was holding off and so I went for a walk along one of the quays.

There must be something up somewhere concerning maritime traffic on the St Lawrence because there was this tug steaming … "dieseling" – ed … up the river. I hadn’t noticed any ship in the vicinity other than the Venture and she didn’t look as if she was preparing for sea, so I wondered where the tug might be going.

Over there on the other side of the dock is the quay where we saw that goelette when I was here in early September. It’s not there now (the ground’s all flat, and beneath it lies the bloke …) though.

In the background over there is the Ile Sainte Hélène and the Biosphere, which was the pavilion of the United States during Expo ’67. It was originally covered by an acrylic sheath but it will come as no surprise to any regular reader of this rubbish to learn that this sheath was destroyed in a fire in May 1976.

From my spec on the dock I walked around the quay onto the waterfront. There were hordes of people here, all taking advantage of the afternoon and what sun was still loitering about.

But never mind the people for the moment. What was interesting me was the autumn colours on the trees here in the Vieux Port. They are magnificent. You can see why I love being here in Canada in the autumn – I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

A little further on along, there was a good view down towards the east past the clock tower. This is a war memorial to the sailors of the Merchant Marine who were lost during World War I and was designed as a replica of Big Ben in London.

Further down is the Pont Jacques Cartier – the Jacques Cartier Bridge that spans the river between Montreal and Longueuil, with the modern port area further along behind.

The weather was now deteriorating rapidly as you can tell from the clouds. Scattering a cloud of pigeons, I walked around the docks to the old commercial port.

We’ve talked about the goelettes – the ships that used to run the boat services from Montreal to all of the small towns and villages along the shores of the St Lawrence in the days before the road network.

This was the dock from which they sailed and to which they returned. And all around here back in those days was a kind of market where the people from along the shore who had brought their produce down in the goelettes would set up their stalls to sell their produce.

Feeling the strain again by now I repaired to the old Marché Bonaventure. This has now been restored and occupied by all of these trendy boutiques. But down at the far end is a café where there are some comfy chairs and, surprisingly, coffee on sale at a very democratic price.

A comfy sofa was free so I installed myself there, drank my coffee and read my new book for a while. When I find my strength again, I can move on.
About half an hour or so later I hit the road again, retracing my steps to the Place Victoria and the Metro Station.

Right outside, but across the road from the entrance, I stumbled across a television crew filming someone talking into the microphone about something or other. I’ve no idea who he was and I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I took the opportunity to take a photo of him.

I always seem to find a camera crew when I’m on my travels in North America, don’t I?

The metro took me back to DuCollege and there I had to wait ages for the bus 202 to take me back to the Comfort Inn. We had the usual unavoidable performance of persuading the driver to drop me off by the bridge at the end of the Cote de Liesse where I could cross the motorway (otherwise I have to walk for miles and miles because there’s no official bus stop anywhere near there).

There was an airport shuttle already on the road so I grabbed my suitcase, nipped into the Gentlemen’s rest room, and then back outside for the shuttle and on the way to the airport.

In the shuttle were a couple of people and we ended up discussing the Brexit. Even though many Quebecois have been fighting tooth-and-nail for 50 years for independence, the unanimous opinion of my fellow-travellers was that the British vote for the Brexit was the most stupid thing that they have ever heard.

Quebec has an almost-inexhaustible supply of raw materials and an almost-inexhaustible supply of energy. The UK has no raw materials and all of its energy resources are owned by foreigners (even the new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point is to be operated by EDF of France).

It has nothing that anyone would ever want and nothing that would be any use in launching a manufacturing industry.

There was quite a queue at the baggage check-in and I had to wait for about half an hour to hand in my suitcase. And this time, they managed not to drop my passport into the conveyor belt.

The food on Air Transat is total rubbish as I have already told you, and there is a “Subway” downstairs. Consequently, I went off and ordered a 12-inch vegetarian without cheese. Just for once, I asked for the bread to be toasted, and I’m wishing now that I hadn’t, for reasons that I will explain in due course.

The final thing that needed to be done concerned my bus ticket. I had bought a three-day one, as you might remember, and there was over 28 hours remaining on it. I intended to give it to anyone who was about to buy one but although I was there for 10 minutes there was no-one approaching the ticket machine.

What I did therefore was to write on it “valable jusqu’a mardi minuit” – “doesn’t expire until Tuesday at midnight” and left it on the machine. Whoever might need it can just help themselves.

The queue through the security was quite small – about 10 minutes to go through. And much to my surprise, not only was it painless but the staff weren’t the usual arrogant unpleasant staff that you normally find at the airport at Montreal.

I hiked off down to the gate, which was right down at the end of the terminal, and installed myself on a seat where there was a power point (and that took some finding too). Feeling hungry, I attacked my Subway sandwich but half of the filling fell out. Having the bread toasted meant that it wasn’t as pliable and so I won’t be doing that again.

At 21:15 we were called onto the aeroplane. it was an Airbus 330, quite new by the looks of things, and I was lucky in having one of the twin seats near the rear.

Once we had all settled in, we hurtled down the runway and launched ourselves off into the air, heading back to Europe. My stay in Canada was over.

I was desolate – this may well have been my last trip across the Atlantic because I won’t ever be in any better health than I am right now. Who knows where I’ll be in 12 months time? “Pushing up the daisies” I mused to myself.

And here you are – 2658 words of my last day in North America. A world-record number of words.

I hope that you all appreciate it. Don’t forget to “like” it

Saturday 8th October 2016 – AND SO AFTER ALL …

… of the shenanigans of last night, the Orleans Express bus from the Gaspé Peninsula turned up bang on time and we were all ready and waiting. It set off on time too, which was nice to know, and I settled down for the long drive to Montreal. Those hot cross buns that I had bought in Woodstock were really nice – I’ll tell you that.

For the first part of the journey I didn’t drop off to sleep at all. Probably far too wound up after the drive up from Florenceville. Instead, I curled up on my seat and carried on reading my book. At Sainte-Foy there were no toilets opened and the one on the bus was occupied so I curled up on my seat again and this time I managed to drift in and out of sleep all the way into Montreal.

At the bus station I had a really good half-hour power nap in the usual little hidey-hole. And then I was ready for anything. Unless you’ve tried it, you’ve no idea just how comfortable you can become when you ride astride the porcelain horse.

“Anything” was the bus station café. A huge cup of coffee and a couple of bagels were just the job for breakfast but I didn’t stay there for long. The internet connection was rubbish and I was keen to see how Rachel was doing (she finally arrived home at 04:30). And so I went to track down the 747 bus to the airport.

It doesn’t stop in the coach station any more. According to my friendly neighbourhood bus driver, they’ve upped the standing fees in the bus station and the STM – Societe de Transports de Montreal – is refusing to pay them. Instead, the bus leaves from down the road outside the Berri-UQAM metro station. There’s no ticket machine in the bus station either now, so you have to go to the machine at the metro station. I bought a 3-day ticket ($18:00) because it’s cheaper than two one-day passed (2x$10:00).And it was pouring down with rain outside. Whatever happened to the Indian Summer we had been having.

I found a comfy bench at the airport, with yet another flaky internet connection. Nevertheless, I was able to catch up with a few things there, despite being interrupted by a vocal local yokel who wanted to discuss Facebook with me. There’s a “Subway” in the airport too and so seeing as I was thirsty I went and had a giant sized root beer and I ordered a sandwich to take away. The Comfort Inn is rather out on a limb and there isn’t anything available to eat in the vicinity.

Having organised all of that, I phoned for my shuttle, and that brought me here to the hotel. It’s fully-booked and so there wasn’t a room available at that moment. Still, there’s a comfy chair, a good internet connection, a power point and a free coffee pot in the foyer. What else do you need when you are waiting for your room?

I didn’t have to wait long for my room, and the first thing that I did was to have a stinking hot shower and to wash my clothes – I’m running out. But it must have been Eskimos … "Inuit" – ed … who had this room before me. The heat was off but the fan was on blowing cold air around and it was about 10°C in here.I whacked the heating up and resolved not to move until the temperature reached 25°C.

I had my butty, chatted to Liz and one or two other people for a while, and spent the rest of the afternoon dozing in and out of sleep. it’s been a hard day so far.

Nevertheless, I made it out for the bus 202. I missed the first one so went back in. But I was out for the next – in fact just in time to step straight onto the bus as it was going past. As you might expect, I ended up at the Cote des Neiges, and here I had a terrible shock. It’s all been gentrified and many of the smaller businesses have been cleared away and replaced with trendy boutiques. It took me a while to track down an assiete falafel, but when I did, it was well worth it because it was one of the best that I have had in North America.

So that was me fixed.

On the way back, Rhys ‘phoned me up and we had a really good chat until the battery on my phone went dead. I spent the next hour or two having a huge melancholy nostalgia fit listening to music. Leaving Canada always makes me feel maudlin.

So now I’m off to bed. My last night in Canada and I’m inconsolable. If my health continues to deteriorate at the rate it seems to be deteriorating, I shan’t ever be back again.

That’s enough to make anyone feel maudlin, never mind me.

Friday 7th October 2016 – ABSOLUTE, COMPLETE AND UTTER TOTAL B*****D

And that’s putting it mildly. There has been a major blow-up here tonight and there are going to be some serious repercussions about all of this.

But first, let’s put things in the correct order.

This morning, I was totally dreadful. I wasn’t going anywhere at all. Despite Hannah having returned from University last night I wasn’t up to very much – just leaving my bed to tell Rachel that I was going back to bed again. I was totally incapable of functioning.

I struggled to my feet again round about midday and Amber, who was staying at home told me that I had a few things to do, such as going back to the border and handing back my entry pass to the USA. That was quite important as I’ve had problems about forgetting to do that in the past.

So I set off down there, with my head slowly clearing the farther along the road that I drove. And at the Canadian border post I had a piece of luck in that I could hand it back there without having to cross the line.

On the way back down the road into Centreville I stopped by the river and ate my butty in the sunshine, having a little doze as I ate. But I can’t stay here for ever – I went back to the tyre depot to say goodbye.

Much to my surprise, my permanent insurance certificate has arrived. I put that in Strider and now he’s 100% legal (not that he wasn’t before of course but now I have all of the paperwork to prove it). I was able to fax to the insurance brokers the registration certificate and a copy of my French driving licence so they now have all of the information that they need. All I need now is for this insurance company not to change its rules and regulations and to keep me insured.

Just so that there’s no mistake or misunderstanding, with what I would have had to pay for hiring a vehicle over the last two occasions that I’ve visited Canada (2015 and just now), then if you calculate the cost of buying Strider, taxing, insuring and maintaining him, I am now in front. And if I do come back next year, I shall start to be well ahead. Buying Strider was definitely the right decision, as I knew that it would be.

And not only that, I have had an e-mail from the insurance company to say that anyone with a Canadian driving licence and with their own vehicle insurance can drive Strider too. I printed out a copy of that and stuck it in Strider just so that it’s there for the record.

But by now it was 15:00 and I had gone again. Completely. To such an extent that I fell off the chair on the office. Rachel picked me up, dusted me off, gave me the key to the house and sent me home where I crashed out completely. I should have gone to Darren’s sister’s husband’s birthday party at 18:00 but I was going absolutely nowhere.

I had to haul myself out of bed at 20:45 because this was the time that I had to go to catch my Maritime Bus back to Montreal. It leaves the Irvings petrol station at 21:3O so I wanted to be there by 21:15.

And so we were. And so we waited. And 21:30 came round, but the bus didn’t. And neither was it there at 21:45. The petrol station closes at 22:00 and so I went over to the girl to ask about the bus and … it had arrived at 21:00 and because there was no passenger there, he had cleared straight off without waiting for me.

The b*****d.

So we rang up the Maritime Bus headquarters using both the numbers provided by the girl in the petrol station – and as you might expect, “we are now closed. Please call back during office hours” – which is of course absolutely no use whatever when you are running an overnight bus service with overnight passengers waiting in overnight bus stops in isolated locations.

And so we phoned the Maritime Bus stop at Grand Falls. And he had just left there too, half an hour early. I thus called up the coffee-stop at Edmundston (a mere 140 kms away) and asked them to hold the bus, and we set off to give chase.

Rachel drove like the wind – I shan’t tell you how fast we were going in case the farces of law and order are reading this – but when we arrived at Edmundston he had left. It seemed that he had refused to wait.

The double b*****d.

We stopped for a coffee at Tim Hortons and Rachel had some business to, which must be done before midnight. And then we set off for the next 110 kilometres to Riviere du Loup. Here is the bus interchange where I need to board the Orleans Express that comes down the Gaspé Peninsula to Montreal. I usually have an hour’s wait there and so at least we had plenty of time to do the final leg.

Although the Coach Maritime Bus was at the bus depot, the driver had long-gone to his hotel, so I wasn’t able to tell him what I thought of him. But the ticket agent was quite interested in my story. He wondered why the bus had arrived at 23:50 instead of the more usual 00:15.

The triple b*****d.

Rachel ended up having to drive a total of 520 kilometres and a journey whereby she would be home at about 21:50 took her until 04:30 the following morning, just because some Coach Maritime Bus driver wanted to get to bed half an hour early. By the time that I finish with him and his company he can have as many early nights as he likes because he won’t be driving a bus again.

The quadruple b*****d.

So now I was ensconced in the bus terminal waiting room waiting for my bus back to Montreal. There would be no confusion about this one.

Thursday 6th October 2016 – I FELT THE PAIN …

… this morning of the last two days on the road. It was a struggle to crawl out of bed and start out.

but I had to do it because I have a very long day tomorrow and so if I’m going to take a break, tomorrow during the day is the best time.

So we went off to the tyre depot, in another load of fog and hanging cloud, to say hello again to everyone and for a coffee. And once that was accomplished, there was work to do. Rachel had some deliveries that needed to be made in Florenceville. Everyone else was busy and so I volunteered to go. “Sing for your supper” and all of that.

Next stop was Woodstock, and so I set off down the road on the eastern side of the Saint John River. Not that I could see anything because the fog billowing off the river was blanketing everything.

By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so it was rather crowded in Strider. The fog was lifting too. I went into the Atlantic Superstore for some shopping for lunch, and here I hit the jackpot. Not only were hot-cross buns on sale, but there were a few packets reduced by 50%. As you know, I have a long way to go tomorrow night and also, the food is pretty miserable on Air Transat. The hot-cross buns will fill in the gap quite nicely.

There’s a grassy area and boat slipway at the back of the Council car park in Woodstock, overlooking the River Meduxnekeag, and this is one of my favourite places to stop for lunch. And here I am yet again.

In the sunshine, eating my butty, reading my book, chatting to the boaters and … errr … closing my eyes to relax in the beautiful weather with the glorious autumn colours on the trees on the opposite bank of the river, there’s nothing more pleasant than this.

Once I’d come back into the Land of the Living, I had work to do. Tomorrow, Strider is being laid up for the winter and so I need to have everything sorted out.

A huge pile of rubbish went into the bins for a start, and then I tipped everything out of the back, sorted and stacked it into the boxes where it will live for the winter (and threw away another pile of stuff) and then slid the boxes back under the bed.

Some of the foodstuffs won’t keep, especially as I’ve no idea when if ever I might be coming back, so I made up a box of all of that to give to Rachel. And then there was some stuff that I wanted to take back to europe with me.

On the way back I stopped at the car wash and gave Strider a good going-over with the pressure lance ready for putting away. And once I’d arrived back at Rachel’s, I took out everything that was to come out. There wasn’t anyone about though and so I settled down in the sun to read a book. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

Darren came back and I had a guided tour of the garage. While I’d been away he’d tidied up in there and the place was looking quite impressive. It won’t be long before he’ll be in a position to strip down the engine on Perdy in the Pink.

Once Rachel and Amber returned, we had tea and then we chatted for hours about this and that. After all, I have to be realistic and say that I’ve no idea if ever I’ll be able to come back to Canada. This might be my last chance to see them.

But I was soon in bed. I hadn’t been up to much all day and by now my batteries were really flat. I’m struggling along now and I can feel everything – all the aches and pains all over the place.

Wednesday 5th October 2016 – BRRRR!

When I awoke this morning, bright and early, I went out to grab the cereal and soya milk from the back of Strider. And by heck, I wish I hadn’t!

Winter has definitely arrived, that’s for sure. Just look at this lot outside. It’s just like back home in the Auvergne isn’t it, with the hanging cloud, the cold and the freezing fog that has blanketed the Appalachian Mountains round about here on the edge of Kedgwick.

I had had a bad night last night despite just how comfortable it was in my nice big bed in my nice big room.

I’d crashed out by about 21:00 but I was tossing and turning all over the place and was really uncomfortable. Somehow I was tired and completely fast asleep and somehow I wasn’t, and I’m not sure that you’ll understand what I mean. But anyway, I was wide awake at 01:00, with the radio still playing, so I turned it off and this time I managed a decent sleep, until about 05:00

I’d been on my travels too, with the welcome return of Nerina, who hasn’t set foot in these nocturnal rambles for quite a while. We were at my house, in its usual state of papers all over the floor and we were looking for some papers that really ought to have been there but weren’t and this was all becoming far more complicated than it ought to have been. At he same time, Zero was at the kitchen sink doing the washing-up. She was being her usual cheerful self and we were discussing smoking. She said that she had tried a cigarette once, so I smacked her bottom for her.

When I sat down to breakfast I found that I had forgotten to fetch the spoon so I ended up eating my breakfast cereal with a fork and trying my best not to crash out again. I’m clearly not well at the moment.

Still, I can’t sit around here all day moping about the bad weather. I need to be moving on despite the fog. And this time, I didn’t forget to go and take a photograph of the night’s lodgings just for the record.

I’d been low on fuel too last night and there was an Irving’s next door – one of the reasons why I had stopped here – so I went off and fuelled up. I now have 97 Air miles after that – isn’t that good?

When I was on my way in the other direction 10 or so days ago, I’d stopped at the supermarket in town where I’d discovered baguettes on sale at half-price. I popped back in there on the way past this morning to see how the land lay and, sure enough, baguettes were on sale again. And so with what I had bought yesterday at Matane, that was lunch organised.

On the way through St Quentin the other day I’d noticed that there was a railway station in the town, on the old abandoned Canadian National railway line between Campbelltown and St Leonard.
There were a few railway artefacts on display outside, and so I’d pencilled the station in for a visit on the return trip and so here I am.

The little locomotive had caught my eye and I wondered if it really was a narrow-gauge locomotive that had been rescued from a mineral line somewhere. But in fact it was built in 1985 out of scrap and recycled materials by a couple of Canadian National employees from Campbelltown.

That wasn’t the only thing to catch my eye either. What do you reckon about this?

It’s a platelayers’ trolley but enclosed (a necessity given the severe winters around here) and with a petrol engine rather than a pump-action handle, which is a bit of a cheat. They were used by the track maintenance crews during their duties, which included fire-watching because sparks from the steam locomotives setting the forests alight was a real problem.

So much so that it will come as no surprise for any regular reader of this rubbish to realise that the station building here at St Quentin is not the original one. That, just like any other building here in Canada, caught fire and burnt down.

However, the most exciting exhibit here at the railway station must be this weird machine.

I’m not sure of the proper name by which this machine might be known, and I certainly have never seen one of them before, but I think that it’s magnificent and I definitely want one of these.

There were lots of other stuff actually inside the station, which was by the way not only a museum but the local tourist information office and the offices of the local Chamber of Commerce.

There was some kind of collection of railway wagons here too and so I went for a browse.

This caboose caught my eye – and not just because it’s a caboose but because of the message that’s on it. It reads “Dessert tout le Canada” which, crudely translated by Yours Truly (and if there’s any “crudely” involved, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney, “I’m your man”) as “serves all of Canada”.

However, that’s clearly a spelling mistake. It should read “Désert tout le Canada” which means “Abandons all of Canada” – which is certainly true these days.

This is why I have to mess around on buses and rely on Rachel to pick me up in Florenceville when there’s an abandoned Canadian National railway line that passes at the bottom of her garden and an abandoned Canadian National railway station right next door to the tyre depot.

By now the hanging clouds had gone, the sun was out and I was coming out of the Appalachian Mountains. It was a beautiful day now so I headed to St Leonard and the Saint John River to find a place to eat my butties.

I found a nice place to park up for my lunch – the car park for the Rendez-vous des Artistes in St Leonard. It was closed up so I didn’t think that anyone would mine.

What appealed to me about this place was that it had a good view over the river and right by one of the few remaining railway lines in New Brunswick. And I thought that I had heard a locomotive whistle too and so I prepared the camera, but nothing came by while I was here.

That over there across the Saint John River is the town of Van Buren, which is in Maine, USA. I was sitting right by the border crossing on the Canadian side of the river admiring the view and taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

And I wasn’t alone either. They say that there’s one in every village, and the one in St Leonard sought me out for a chat. He was speaking French and what with his accent and a speech impediment that he had, I couldn’t make out one word in every ten that he was uttering.

Nevertheless, we put the world to rights for half an hour and then, in the words of the reporters of the long-gone and long-lamented “News of the Screws”, I “made my excuses and left”.

Back up the hill and I hit the highway southwards, and aren’t I grateful for speed limiters and cruise control? I set the speed to 108kms and settled down for the drive back to Centreville, and it was then that I noticed in my rear-view mirror a County Mountie slowly closing up on me. But with the speed limiter I didn’t have too much to worry about in the normal run of events. He eventually passed me, having a good glance as he went by, but with the cruise control in operation he had no reason to pull me over and he eventually pulled away in front.

I was having visions of David Crosby and his
“It increases my paranoia”
“like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car”
“But I’m not giving in an inch to fear”
“‘cos I promised myself this year”
“I feel like I owe it to someone”
and reckon that it applies to me – I certainly owe it to myself, that’s for sure after all that I’ve been through this year.

I tracked down my mailbox too. And talk about a local postal service – my mailbox is about 7 or 8 kilometres from my plot of land. It’s astonishing. How I’m supposed to go and get my post in the middle of winter is totally beyond me.

But there was some really good news for me. Regular readers of this rubbish might recall that the motor insurance on Strider was cancelled about my head last year when we had the driving licence issues. There was a cheque in my mail box for the refund of the cancelled policy, minus the time on risk value, and this was not far off the total premium of the new policy. The cheque had timed out and so I took it back to the brokers in Florenceville and they wrote out a new one.

Waving that around in my sweaty little mitt, I went to the Scotia Bank and paid it in. I did a few more financial manoeuvres … “PERSONoeuvres” – ed … there, and now I reckon that I could keep on going over in Canada for a good while if necessary.

Back at the tyre depot I met up with everyone, had a coffee and a chat, and then we went back home to Rachel and Darren’s. Rachel made a lovely tea and we had a good chat, and then I crawled off to bed at some really early, ridiculous time.

This six weeks gap between treatments is evidently too much, but I’m not complaining. Despite the health issues that have now caught up properly with me, I would never otherwise have come here and I wouldn’t have missed my trip to Canada for the world.

Tuesday 4th October 2016 – I’M BACK …

… in New Brunswick tonight.

And I’m not sure if that is disappointing or not. I wanted to stay in Godbout, that’s for sure. But I also wanted to head off. I was having itchy feet and needed to feel the road again.

Last night though was bizarre. I thought that I had had a very disturbed night but when I sat down and analysed it, it wasn’t quite like that at all. I was late going off to sleep and, just for a change, I’d managed to close everything down, and I’d only been off down the corridor once. When the alarm went off too, I was stark out, so it couldn’t have been that bad.

But I had been on my travels though. Caliburn had an electric fault and the cigarette lighter socket was no longer functioning. So I took him to someone’s house where there was an old man whom I thought could help me. I had to reverse him all the way down the drive at the side of the house (it was a bungalow) into a wooden shed that was there. I knocked on the door and the guy’s son (he reminded me of the son of Labbe -the farmer who uses the field behind my house) came to the door. I asked him if his father was there and he replied that he was, but that he was asleep in bed. His sister (of the son, that is) came to the door and climbed into Caliburn. I drove her into town because it was market day. We walked around the market together and after we were half-way around the circuit she asked me if we had seen any wheelchairs (this was the first time that she had spoken during the entire trip). There had been a couple of people with what looked as if they might have been wheelchairs that we had passed right at the beginning and so we went back to see, but the people had gone and so, presumably, the wheelchairs (if they were wheelchairs) hadn’t been for sale.

I had my breakfast and took my leave of my landlord. I’d had a really good stay and enjoyed myself there. And it turned out that I had had a good deal there too. I hadn’t even made the slightest enquiry as to the price of the room, and in the end I was charged $75:00 plus taxes per night for my seven-night stay.

That was what I call real value. I was well-impressed with that and, having seen an “Orleans Express” bus passing through the village, that gives me a cunning plan for the winter, if I’m up to it.

When all was said and done, Strider and I headed across the road to the ferry terminal.

And I was ever so impressed with this caravan that was parked up in one of the lanes. I wouldn’t mind having one of those to tow behind Strider. But seriously, I reckon that it really was some kind of garden shed that was being delivered across the St Lawrence.

We didn’t have to wait too long for the F A Gauthier to set sail. Bang on time, in fact which was impressive. I took a comfortable seat right at the front of the cabin and settled down for the journey.

I didn’t stay settled down for all of the journey, though. I had seen a pile of ships sailing along the St Lawrence River and so I went for a closer look.

There were three of them, miles away so that I couldn’t read their names, not even with the zoom lens on full magnification. This was one of the ships, that looks as if it might be a bulk carrier. The second was a container ship and the third might have been a tanker.

Going back to my seat, I was distracted by the smell of chips coming from the galley. I did say that I wouldn’t have anything to eat until I left the ferry, but I was overcome. So much for the strength of my willpower.

We docked bang on time too and I headed off to the IGA supermarket to stock up for the last time. A baguette of course, and some hummus, tomatoes and lettuce for my lunch. I’d decided that the chips that I had had were nothing more than a snack.

And then The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav led me on a merry, mazy way through Matane – and I do have to say that I had more of an idea where I was going than she did. I overruled her on a couple of occasions.

My route took me up the riviere Matane valley and then over the top down to Amqui. I have mentioned before that I have to stop by water to eat my lunch, wherever possible, and for some reason or other there was nowhere suitable. It wasn’t until I reached Causapscal that somewhere suitable hove into view – a nice little park by the bridge over the river.

I had a nice lunch, a good read of my book and a little relax there, with leaves falling upon me like autumn rain. All of that did me the world of good and I ended up being so relaxed that I forgot to take a photograph of it.

All the way down the Matapedia Valley I had noticed that there were railway wagons loaded with sawdust parked in almost every railway siding along the railway.

All of this was explained, rather surprisingly, when I passed over the bridge into New Brunswick. In the distance on the old line on the north shore of the Restigouche River I could see a train heading my way.

Could this be the first moving train that I have seen this year? I couldn’t remember so I had to stop and photograph it. And not only that, the idea of a train on this run-down line, and the existence of what might be described 60 years ago as a “pick-up goods” – well, they were all things that made this train and its locomotives well worth photographing.

And when I do find five minutes, I’ll tell you all about the locomotives too. But I find myself estranged from my Jane’s Train Recognition Guide at the moment.

Nearly spearing a passing vehicle as I exited my parking place, I set off again and headed into the hills, direction St Leonards. You probably noticed the shadows lengthening in the previous photograph. Time was drawing on and I was tired, and I knew that there were several motels along the way.

Funnily enough, nothing appeared for a good few miles until I reached the edge of the town of Kedgwick. I was looking for fuel too as I was about to drop into the final quarter of the tank. An Irvings loomed out of the gloom, and right next door was the O’Regal Restaurant and Motel.

$71:00 taxes included was the price, and although there was no microwave and the place was rather tired, the value was stupendous. There was a lovely, comfortable sofa and I could have held a ball in the room, so big it was.

They rustled up a pizza for me (I still had some cheese left) which was rather expensive, but there wasn’t a lot of competition about and I didn’t want to wander far. This will suit me find.

The bed seems to be comfortable anyway, and so I’ll make the most of that.

Monday 3rd October 2016 – MY LAST FULL DAY …

…in Godbout, so how am I going to celebrate it?

We can start off by my telling you where I went last night.

I was driving a coach into north London – somewhere around the top end of the Edgeware Road where there was a coach station (which there wasn’t) and after dropping a few people off, I had a panic attack because I needed to go to the south side of the river and for some unaccountable reason I couldn’t remember the way, although it’s a route that I’ve travelled dozens of times. I could only remember bits and pieces of the route.

Strangely enough (or maybe not), now that I’m awake, I’ve gone through the route in my mind. And I find that I can’t now remember it. Furthermore, I can’t remember several routes that I used to use going through London and that’s all rather worrying for me. Not that I’ll ever need them, but it’s certainly a sign of decay.

I say “awake” rather loosely because it was something of a struggle for me to be up and about this morning. But up and about I was, but not for long and I was soon back upstairs.

This was where I had an idea about today’s drive. Remember the other day at Franquelin when I mentioned about the old road and the bridge that I couldn’t reach? I had a look on an internet mapping site and I could see that it might be possible to access the bridge from the other direction.

That sounded like an exciting thing to do, especially as the route would take me past a dam, a waterfall and a hydro-electric installation. That looked like a good plan.

Arriving there, though,wasn’t as straightforward as it might have been. I found the correct dirt track and drove off down it, only to be stopped by another motorist.

Apparently, it’s a private road, owned by a group of people who have a collection of holiday chalets down at the end of the track. I need to present myself to the gate guardian and sign the visitors’ book.

And so I did. It was nominally $7:00 to enter the area but if I was only going to the dam and the hydro-electric installations (and he told me clearly where I had to go) I could go in for nothing. That sounded like a good deal.

The directions that he gave me took me to the barrage where there was a nice little lake and a visitors’ parking area.

This looked as if it would be a good place for me to eat my butty and to read my book for a while in the sunshine. Especially seeing as there’s water here. As you know, I’m Pisces, the fish, and there has to be water wherever I settle down. And with a vehicle, I can pick and choose my lunch stops.

There was some kind of circular tourist walk advertised and while I wasn’t up to spending a couple of hours climbing up and down the kind of route that they were advertising, I thought that nevertheless it would still be a good idea to go for a tramp in the woods.

Unfortunately, the tramp evaded my clutches and so I loitered in the vicinity to admire the vegetation. Mostly all evergreen conifers and not very much in the way of deciduous trees.

And I wasn’t alone here in the forest either.

While I hadn’t seen any livestock of note on my travels, I was continually being overflown by large airliners. It’s that time of day again – early afternoon when all of the flights from Europe come in to Montreal.

Most of them fly along the St Lawrence estuary at round about this time and I must have counted 8 or 9 that went over me while I was walking.

i’d seen on the information panel at the dam that the footpath went past a belvedere – a scenic viewpoint. It was to there that I was heading.

It is indeed a scenic viewpoint and as it overlooks a lake, it has to be quite high in my table of interest. As you know, I’m not a big fan of hydro-electric power – or, at least, those that are powered by lake retention – but I do have to admit that they do make for some quite beautiful scenery in places like this.

I went back to the parking place afterwards and crossed back over the dam.

I was told that this wasn’t actually the original channel of the river but the blocking off of the original course of the river diverted it into a course that was much more amenable to the extraction of the potential power that the river can supply. Power is, of course, the big thing around here for these villages that are isolated from any other source of electricity.

I did mention that round about here were some waterfalls – the Thompson Falls.
I had a good look round and couldn’t see very much but after a while I noticed some water cascading down the rocks over there. I had to look at it for a while before I could make out that it didn’t appear to be actually coming from the dam.

There was nowhere to look at the falls from a better viewpoint and so I couldn’t confirm anything, but this is the best guess that I can make as to the location of the Thompson Falls.

I did mention that I was told that this isn’t the original channel of the rivière Franquelin.

But whatever it was, the hydro work has created this absolutely beautiful river. And you can work out the strength of the river and how deep it floods by looking at the tree line on the shore. Nothing at all is growing within about 20 feet of the level of the river today.I would love to be here in April and see what the river is doing then, when it’s in full spate with the meltwater coming down.

Back in Strider, I retraced my steps for a distance because I’d seen a sign for the snowmobile trail which I knew led to the back of Franquelin and which I’d tried the other day to follow.

It was a pretty rough trail, but then this was the reason that I had bought Strider. He’s a 4×4 pick-up fitted with the off-road kit, larger, heavier wheels and proper off-road tyres, just the thing for roads like this.

And I’m glad that Strider and I took this road because the scenery along here was tremendous. This is the river Franquelin that we had seen from up above at the dam just now.

A short distance further on I came to a grinding halt. The snowmobile trail shot off into the hills and was pretty impassible from this point on. The roadway hadn’t been cleared for years.

But never mind. My attention was diverted by what looked like another small waterfall on the river. This led down to a set of beautiful sandy beaches that you can see over there on the opposite bank. I was eager to investigate.

And so investigate it I did.

It wasn’t all that much of a waterfall as you can see. It wasn’t very high, and there wasn’t very much in the way of the force of water cascading over the falls.

Mind you, it took quite a bit of clambering (and sliding) over a kind of lava bed to arrive at the foot of the falls so I could be proud of that achievement.

And as to why there was so little water cascading over the falls despite the volume of water in the river, that problem quickly resolved itself
from a different viewpoint.

What we have here is yet another hydro-electric generating station. This one dates from 2010 and is actually owned, for the most part, by the municipality of Franquelin who make quite a sum of money from Quebec Hydro for the sale of surplus electricity.

It was a beautiful, warm afternoon and so I went for quite a nice walk along the river to visit the beaches.

the sand, being of ground-down glacial rock, is of a superb quality and was holding its warmth quite well. It was just the kind of place where I could quite happily stretch out for a couple of hours in the summer sun, had it not been for the whining of the hydro-electric generators in the background.

Mind you, I wouldn’t want to stretch out in the sun too close to the sides of the valley, and the reason for that is quite clear when you look at the photograph.

You can see that we’ve had a landslide just here – and it’s a huge one too. I shudder to think how much soil came sliding down the hill when that gave way.

And all of the lumber too. You aren’t going to be too short of winter wood if you were the owner of that piece of land.

By now it was late afternoon and I was feeling the strain. I walked back to Strider along the river and took a photo of the river in the reverse direction,just to show you how nice it was here.

And with that, I was ready to go home – and back to New Brunswick tomorrow too.

And I’d been lucky with the weather. It was absolutely glorious. No complaints from me at all, especially when you consider that we are now into October.

I drove back to Godbout without any incident and that was my day over. I had my tea and went upstairs to pack ready for tomorrow.

I was going back across the river tomorrow and I didn’t really want to leave.

Sunday 2nd October 2016 – NOW, THAT WAS MUCH MORE LIKE IT.

I took the time and the trouble to rearrange the blankets here on the bed before settling down, and once I was back in it, I remember absolutely nothing at all until about 05:30. ‘Stark out” is the phrase.

It was also a struggle to awaken. Despite the alarm going off at 06:00 and agan at 06:15, it was about 07:30 when I could finally say that I was back in the land of the living. And then only just too. But I suppose that it’s no surprise, seeing as how I’d been on my travels again.

I’d started off with e female member of my family (and I can’t remember who now) and we were working on some project which involved an enormous database and spreadsheet. I’d become involved in this project somewhere along the line and ended up doing something magnificent rather like the one that I did for The Conference Board that time, and it really did look impressive.
From there, I went on to a motorbike – a big powerful thing – and I was looking for a … errr … gentleman’s rest room rather urgently. I had turned off the main highway into some kind of village and there was a supermarket of a certain type down the road near a phone box and I knew that there were conveniences there, so that was where I headed. But it was all an illusion and no supermarket was there. There was however a kind of village hall that was open and so the girls who were rehearsing there allowed me to use the facilities, which were outside and which afforded almost no privacy whatever.

Anyway, it’s Sunday – a day of rest. But I have plans for today so I can’t rest all that much. I need to be out and about.

But not straight away though – I can (and do) take it easy in the mornings and this is what the plan is today. So I retire to my room, just in time to see the F A Gauthier come sailing … "dieseling" – ed … into port, sit on the bed and plot my next move. And when I wake up about half an hour later, I have more of an idea of what I’m going to do.

First off though, I have a good chat with a couple of friends. It’s nice to see friends on line and the power of the internet is a wonderful thing. But eventually, I haul myself off downstairs and out to Strider.

If you remember my voyage around the north shore of the St Lawrence in 2012 you’ll recall that we spent a night at a really magnificent lighthouse at the Pointe des Monts.

That’s only just down the road from here (well, 30-odd kms is “just down the road” in the wilderness of the North Shore) and so today, I decided to go back and have another look at it to see what had changed over the last 4 years or so.

So when I arrived, first thing that I did was to stop and make myself some butties. There was a howling wind blowing and so I didn’t walk out to the lighthouse straight away but took shelter between Strider and a hedge where I was protected from the wind. I’ve run out of hummus and forgot to buy any yesterday, but I do have some vegan cheese

At least it meant that I could sit and ready a book quietly without being disturbed too much.

I was interrupted on several occasions, mainly by tourists arriving who were mostly turned away by the sight of the chain across the footbridge announcing that the attraction was closed, but also by a very good candidate for our “ship of the day”.

I rushed off to grab the zoom lens to photograph it and to see if I could identify it, but no such luck. It’s way too far out in the estuary for me to see it properly.

First thing that I noticed this year, as opposed to when I was here in 2012, was that all of the artefacts had grown labels – and not before time. That means that I can tell you more about the exhibits on show here.

The anchor, for example, is that from a Norwegian fishing vessel of 1032 tonnes, called the Cimba. She ran aground a short distance to the west of here and was lost – the anchor being salvaged in September 1983

I didn’t need an identity plaque (good job, as there wasn’t one) to be able to tell you a little about the shorter, stubby cannon in the background of the previous photo.

Its size tells us that it’s quite old, and it’s definitely British, and Government Issue too. You can tell simply by noticing the “broad arrow” that has been cast into the outside of the gun barrel. That was the symbol for the British Office of Ordnance, which was created in 1544.

The figure “8” would indicate that this cannon fired 8-pound solid shot.

As for the second cannon, no doubts at all that this is a British weapon. Not only does it have the royal crown cast on it, it has the letters “GR” indicating that it was fabricated in the reign of King George.

But which King George? We’ve had 6 of those in the UK. I couldn’t make out a number in the casting, so I don’t know which King George it might have been. The absence of a number might indicate that it was cast during the reign of the first King George, who reigned from 1714 to 1727.

This would make the cannon to late to have been lost during Walker’s expedition of 1711, and so I’ve no idea really what it is doing here.

Over there back on the mainland we can see Strider parked where I had lunch earlier and with the offices for the lighthouse.

I think that there have been some changes to this site since I was here in 2012 because I’m certain that I reversed the Dodge into a gap between the rear of that building there and another building that was behind it, in order to protect me from the howling gale that was blowing up that night.

Unless of course I imagined it, which is always possible.

I didn’t imagine this though.

It’s a wigwam, or a teepee, or a tipi, and on further investigation I can tell you that it is actually a tipi. We’ve seen a few of these before, one that I recall vividly when we were at Goose Bay in Labrador last year. This makes me associate it with the Innu people who have a heritage around this area that dates back a considerable amount of time.

Talking of the Innu – who were known by the French as Montagnais – and their habitation of the area, there was originally no church for them and religious services took place on a kind of ad hoc basis.

This all changed when the Chapel of St Augustin was opened in 1898 following a petition to the church from Victor Fafard, the lighthouse keeper at the time.

However, the local Innu dispersed not long afterwards and so the chapel served the fishing families who lived round the area. They too had dispersed by the time that World War I had started, and the chapel fell into decay. It has however been restored a couple of times since then.

There is a restaurant-cum-cafe that I had noticed just across the road from the Chapel and I did have to admit that I could have done some very considerable damage to a large mug of coffee right at that moment.

I wandered over there but, as you are probably expecting, the place was closed up. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again – and again" – ed … this Canadian idea of just a 10-week summer season isn’t half getting on my wick

All along the coast and round about in this area is an old Innu trail that these days is called the Sentier de Charlotte. It runs from the chapel down to where there was a well-known Innu settlement that has been excavated.

Unfortunately we had a little change of plan here, due to the fact that I crashed out in Strider – and crashed out good and proper. “Away with the fairies” had nothing on this.

When I awoke, I clearly wasn’t feeling myself … "disgusting habit anyway" – ed. I’ve had a few crashes like this over the last 10 months and I can now recognise the symptoms. I’m having a bad turn. And so I set of for home and bed.

But I did stop along the lane to take a photograph of the vegetation. Autumn had come at last and the leaves have started to turn. And quite dramatically too.

These are absolutely beautiful and sum up exactly why I like to be in Canada at this time of the year. There can’t be anywhere else in the whole wide world that is as beautiful as this.

Even the mosses are changing colour too.

Back home at my digs I crashed out yet again for a good hour or so, staggered down to make my tea, and then staggered back upstairs again.

Yes -I knew it – I’m having a relapse aren’t I?

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality